Indiana Jones Adventure

Indiana Jones Adventure, opened in 1995, is the most recent "E-Ticket" attraction built in Disneyland Park to remain open. This wild jeep ride is the product of an era of better relationships between Disney, George Lucas, and Steven Spielberg. Here, your jeep takes you on a tour of an archaeological site, where you trip a series of booby traps by looking into the Eyes of Mara. As you try to make it to safety, sequences of animatronic Indiana Joneses help guide the way. With this ride, Walt Disney Imagineering combined intense movements and thrills more commonly associated with other amusement parks, with the deep theming of Disney to provide a thrill experience unique at Disneyland.

Queue Description: Indiana Jones Adventure has one of the great themed queues, which is good since it also has one of the longest queues. The long walk is necessary because the entire ride is actually outside of the parks boundaries and you need to walk down below the park's berm and then into the show building. From the very beginning of the queue you are put into an archaelogical dig into an ancient temple. Throughout the queue you will find artifacts of the temple as well as detritus from archaeologists (as well as the occasional interactive effect). Near the end of the queue you'll get a video safety spiel featuring Sallah (from the movies and still played by John Rhys-Davies).

Health Restriction: The movement on this ride is extremely rough and riders should be in general good health with no heart, back, or neck problems that could be exacerbated. Pregnant women should not ride and those prone to motion sickness may want to pass.

Ride Access: The queue is accessible to wheelchairs and ECVs, though at one point you'll be diverted from the regular line into an elevator that will circumvent a set of stairs. The queue is sloped in most areas.

Wheelchair Transfer: It is required that riders transfer from wheelchairs and ECVs into the ride vehicles.

Service Animals: No

Audio: There are brief bits of audio during the ride, but no assistive devices are available.

Weight and Size Issues: Leg room in the ride units is reasonable, but really long legs may find it tight. The seats may be uncomfortably tight, though the seatbelts should accommodate almost anybody.

Child Swap: Yes. Ask for a rider switch pass from the Cast Member measuring children at official entrance to the attraction. Those who are not riding are encouraged to wait on benches along the walkway to the attraction exit. Two people may use the rider switch pass through the Fast Pass entrance when the rest of their party returns.

Other Issues: Be prepared for potential "surprises" in the queue: there is a pole in one section that when activated causes a loud noise and the ceiling starts to fall in, while spikes come out of it. This can be startling. There are several potentially intense scenes in this ride. Scenes contain: several skeletons, a failing bridge over a lava pit, a cobra that whose body rises 10’ tall and lunges at the vehicle, a rat scene, natives blowing darts at the car (via sound effects,) and finally a rolling boulder coming at the vehicle. The ride movements are rough.

At this location: Amazingly, a ride of this size was added in 1995 without significantly displacing anything that was already in the park. All that was necessary was some slight adjustments. In 1993, the Disneyland Monorail was closed for a period so that its track could be moved to make room for the rides show building; the Jungle Cruise attraction also had some adjustments made in its route to make a bit more room for the queue entrance.

The Attraction's History: Though various ride effects have had differing shelf lives for how long they function between refurbishments, the ride remains mostly the same as when it opened.

Other Trivia:

They're tricking you: Other than spinning, the giant boulder in the ride doesn't actually go anywhere, the illusion is created through the movement of the ride vehicle. Similarly, regardless of which door your trip takes, you go through the same place.

A hidden tribute: When in the room where the safety video is shown, look up and you'll find an old sign of the Eeyore section of the parking lot that used to be in front of Disneyland. The 50,000 square foot show building for Indiana Jones Adventure occupies most of what was that section.

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